IAM1488 – Financial Expert Helps Organizations Get Control of Finances and Taxes

Christine Searle, owner of Searle Business Solutions, LLC, is a financial control expert with more than 30 years of experience helping businesses and non-profits understand and get control over their finances and taxes. She provides tax preparation and planning services and financial process consulting. Christine is a Certified Internal Auditor, Certified in Risk Management Assurance, and an Enrolled Agent. She also volunteers with and supports several Arlington-based social safety net nonprofits.

• CEO Story: Christine’s volunteer work inspired her to instead of working for a large corporation, the smaller ones need help too, like startups and small businesses. And so they benefited from the years of experience Christine had accumulated.
• Business Service: Consultation and processing of finance, tax preparation, and planning services.
• Secret Sauce: Variety of experiences. Financing, Taxes, Auditor, etc.
• CEO Hack: Keeping really organized / Firing on all cylinders regardless of the time of year.
• CEO Nugget: (1) Make sure you have information for the decisions that need to be made (2) Know when to say no.
• CEO Defined: Being accountable and responsible for everything in the business.

Website: http://www.searlebzllc.com
Twitter – http://twitter.com/SearleInfo
LinkedIn – http://bit.ly/22dhOdF

Episode Link: https://iamceo.co/2018/11/23/iam114-financial-expert-helps-organizations-get-control-of-finances-taxes/

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Transcription

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00:25 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:50 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today Christine Searle of Searle Business Solutions. Christine, it's great to have you on the show.

01:00 – Christine Searle

Oh, thank you so much, Gresh. It's a real pleasure.

01:02 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Christine so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Christine Searle is the owner of Searle Business Solutions LLC. She's a financial control expert with more than 30 years of experience helping businesses and nonprofits understand and get control over their finances and taxes. She provides tax preparation and planning services and financial process consulting. Christine is a certified internal auditor, certified in risk management assurance, and an enrolled agent. She also volunteers with and supports several Arlington-based social safety nonprofits. Christine, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:43 – Christine Searle

I sure am. I can't wait.

01:46 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was just to hear, I guess, a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

01:52 – Christine Searle

Well, it's interesting. You mentioned the social safety net nonprofits. My volunteer work actually inspired me to take all my decades of experience and instead of working for a large corporation, recognize that there are smaller nonprofits, smaller businesses, startups, and individuals who are entrepreneurs that need help too. So it's almost, if I were to write the story or the screenplay of my life, you'd think, oh, she was planning this the whole time. No, I just have accumulated a lot of knowledge that I think entrepreneurs small business owners, and nonprofit leaders can benefit from. So I quit my job about 4 years ago, and that's what I've been doing ever since. And things are turning out exactly the way I wanted to.

02:39 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. It's just like you had it all planned, it seems.

02:42 – Christine Searle

Almost. But it really was an accident. I mean, I just really was inspired and I felt that if my volunteer work was getting me out of bed in the morning and my job really wasn't anymore, then I should change what I was doing.

02:56 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, it takes a lot of courage to be able to do that if you know you're not feeling, I guess, exactly where you feel like you should be and to be able to kind of adjust past, so to speak, and definitely a lot of courage for you in doing that. So I wanted to drill a little bit deeper and hear how you're helping out these entrepreneurs, these nonprofit organizations, and associations.

03:13 – Christine Searle

Well, nonprofit leaders, people who started businesses, finances and financial controls, and taxes, are not areas where they have expertise. And when they're starting, often they don't have all the information they need. If they can find a trusted advisor like me to help them navigate through all the parts and pieces, budgeting, and financial reporting so that they can manage their business, know where you are, forecast so that they can plan how things are going, and then be up to date with your taxes. All that takes a lot of information that people just cannot learn and keep up with on their own.

So I find that my best clients, my favorite clients are individuals who own a business. They also certainly have personal tax needs and I can help them understand all the interdependencies and then help them work on some tax returns. We have extensions due in a couple of weeks. And anyway, those are just some of the things that people can not have to focus on how to do all that because they have me.

And then they can focus on growing their business. When they're ready to get to the next level, they can seek my advice on how to do that. If they're not pricing their product or they don't feel like they're making enough margin, we can look at their costs, their underlying costs, and see if they're really priced right in relation to the market and the value proposition that they bring to the table.

04:38 – Gresham Harkless

That makes perfect sense. And that's, and that's definitely huge. You always hear like, you have to know your finances to understand like, you know, how much money you're making from, you know, a certain amount of things that you're buying or you're selling. So you have to make sure that you're always aware of all those kinds of nuances so that, as you said, you can not only continue to run your business but even be in business, which is important to do.

04:59 – Christine Searle

Absolutely. So be aware also that you might just time Some people's cash flows are seasonal. I mean, my business is a great example. With my tax practice, I'm really slammed to the wall about 3 months out of the year. And that's usually when I make most of my money. I have to know that, oh, you know, there's still gonna be work, but it's not going to be, you know, the same cashflow coming in. So I need to make that money last, or make sure that I'm also working on developing a new business so that I have revenue streams coming in. And I also advise my clients on that. It's not just the numbers.

Sometimes when we're talking things through, I have clients that can really get a breakthrough and understanding that, oh you know, spending money on that now might not be necessary or figuring out when it's the good point to quit their day job and spend more time building business because they're about to turn the corner, but they're just not able to invest the time that they need and just helping through those decisions and the return on investment of their time and their money.

06:04 – Gresham Harkless

Which makes perfect sense. Yeah, that helps out a ton am trying to understand that. And you're making those decisions with, you know, the data and the information, not just on a whim, so to speak, because you actually know, like, if I do X, Y, and Z, then I can get to that level or this is holding me back for whatever reason, but you're kind of able to do it with, with the ability to forecast according to, you know, all the information that you help people out with.

06:23 – Christine Searle

Right, right. That's exactly right. Because you can't know everything. Like I said earlier, you can't keep up with all the tax laws. It's not possible to have all the experience to recognize some of the interdependencies, the unintended consequences that might result from taking a particular course. That is 1 of the things that is great about working with someone with a lot of experience like me because I've seen a lot of different scenarios and a lot of the challenges that can come up. So I can offer some perspective.

06:55 – Gresham Harkless

Makes perfect sense. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. You might have already touched on this, but this is something that you feel kind of distinguishes you and sets you apart.

07:04 – Christine Searle

Well, I think it is my experience, not only the length of time, but the variety. Again, looking back on starting out working in financial institutions and then working in the financial planning industry, from that I learned how to do taxes. Then I took a VEAR, became a bank auditor, and then an auditor at a large nonprofit. So all of those different types of experience give me a lot of arrows in my quiver, so to speak. So even when you're talking about taxes, I've seen different scenarios where different tax situations have come up. I even have had, because of my financial planning background and some of the clients and situations I worked in, I'm able to recognize, for example, if you've got a great idea and you're trying to fund it with private investors, oh, you might be talking about a private placement that is going to spark the interest of the Securities and Exchange Commission. I mean, it gets a little bit esoteric sometimes, but I'm that one-stop shopping.

And then I'm also good at knowing what I don't know and I've built a great partnership team, referral partners that I feel are trusted advisors in other areas that I don't really cover like legal and other transactional work the bookkeeping things to keep all the parts and pieces together. And just we can't be everything to everyone.

08:22 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. So I think my secret sauce is just the depth and breadth of knowledge.

08:28 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I was just going to reiterate that is like, you know, you can't know everything, but it's always good to know the person that you can ask. So it's good to have trusted advisors like you spoke to and the experts that you know. And even though you've had the vast experience that helps out a ton, you also know that you can kind of turn to people as well.

08:45 – Christine Searle

Yeah. And then we can work in a partnership. There's no sense in asking the client to translate the legal advice and then the financial information. So if the client agrees then the different consultants can have conversations that are very efficient and can cut out some of the things that get dropped in translation.

09:07 – Gresham Harkless

Right, right. When you have somebody that's already working together and has that kind of synergy, I guess you can say. Exactly. Awesome, awesome, awesome. So now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

09:23 – Christine Searle

Well, it's more discipline or practice. It's something that I've developed over time and I think works really well in my business. I make sure that I keep really organized and that even during my business times of the season I don't let any aspect of my business fall apart. I always keep up with my own financial record-keeping no matter how busy I am. I'm always networking. I'm always planning. I even write a blog every week. That does not stop when I'm really busy.

So I'm always keeping my name out there. And I cut back a little bit on my volunteer work during tax season, but I also volunteer. So I think that firing on all cylinders at all times, you might need to throttle a couple of cylinders back at different times, but keeping all that going, I think is key to my success. And I've seen some other people, you know, forget that they've got a few things that they need to keep going, even when they're really busy serving their clients.

10:19 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that's a great CEO hack, especially because a lot of times consistency is such a big part of being in business and being able to like you say, you know, do that blog post, do that networking event, and always kind of continue to be active, even when you're extremely busy, can help you out, you know, 3, 4 months down the line. So you always kind of have to make sure you have that consistency.

10:37 – Christine Searle

Well, I really think, and I've noticed every year because I keep records, I know that my business has grown every year. Last year, I really noticed it, but this year has been amazing. I have constant referrals. Now, I am doing business with people. Everyone that comes to me now has been referred by a client or a networking partner, someone that trusts me. So many of those referrals end up being clients.

11:05 – Gresham Harkless

Nice, nice. And that's to me, that's a show in proof of you providing great service that somebody wants to of course pass it on and say, hey, you know, I know this great person that can help out. So I think that's an awesome example. And now I wanted to ask you for a CEO nugget. And this might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It could be around, you know, advice that you have for entrepreneurs and business owners, or it could be something that you might tell your younger business self.

11:27 – Christine Searl

Well, I think 2 small ones, because I think they go hand in hand. First of all, make sure that you have information for the decisions that you make. I see not too many often, and it's a little painful, to see new entrepreneurs especially react to the newest shiny object without delving into whether or not there's really going to be gather whatever information you can about the return on investment of that activity or building that relationship. It could be a networking group, it could be investing in marketing, It could be a new tool or software or something, but really understand that because 1 thing like that is not going to save your business or keep your business going. And also knowing when to say no. So that bright shiny object, somebody thinks it's a really cool idea, work for somebody else, assess it, is it gonna work for you? And don't be afraid to say no.

12:22 – Gresham Harkless

I love those.

12:23 – Christine Searle

Yeah, saying no is gonna open the door for some other things that are good yeses.

12:27 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely, yeah, that makes perfect sense. And as you said, you have to be able to create that space and sometimes by having that space you have to say no to certain opportunities or maybe even certain like you said shiny objects that come up and they're fancy that is gonna be the end-all-be-all to everything you need to do and the perfect solution a lot of times that's not the case so you have to be able to say no or not now maybe later on and then start to figure out like you said if there is some ROI by adding that on later on.

12:52 – Christine Searle

Exactly. Because we only have so many resources, time, money, and energy. You have to focus on where it's going to really do the best for you and what your plans are. They're your plans.

13:03 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So I wanted to ask you, Christine, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:15 – Christine Searle

Well, it's being ultimately accountable and responsible for everything in your business, even if you're not the 1 who's actually performing the activities. So the buck really does stop with you. So making the decisions that you know are good for your business, and then maintaining your reputation and all the other things that it takes to succeed because you are your business when you're out there, that is you. So I really think that even when I wasn't just working for myself, I made really good choices for the organizations that I worked for. And now I get the opportunity to benefit from or work through the challenges of every single thing that happens in my business. And I love it.

14:00 – Gresham Harkless

There you go. Yeah, you actually have you make the decisions and you get you bear the fruits of whatever it is that you do or sometimes they're not yet ripe fruits, I should say. You have to wait a little bit longer.

14:13 – Christine Searle

Yeah, absolutely. But you know, I really even if I have something that's challenging, I think, is this better than what used to be my life? Yes, absolutely, absolutely, no question. I have never for 1 moment regretted my choice to start my business and become my own CEO.

14:31 – Gresham Harkless

Well, I love to hear that. And Christine, I truly appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule. What I want us to do is pass you to the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and then how best people can get a hold of you.

14:42 – Christine Searle

Well, I just encourage people to take the leap. You know, if you've figured out that this is what you really want to do and get somebody to help you if you can't figure out the numbers and how to make a business plan, it doesn't have to be formal, but you do need a plan, a vision, energy to execute it, and then be able to be adaptable because you're always going to get more information that you need to make adjustments and make everything better. So just be confident and you can do it. You really can. So the best way to reach me is through my website, www.serlebizllc.com. That's S-E-A-R-L-E-B-Z-L-C.com.

And there's plenty of information about me. That's where my blog post is. And then you can also contact me through the website, put in a service request, or just request a phone call so that we can get acquainted and I can find out more about how I can help you.

15:40 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome. Well, that sounds like a plan and I appreciate you so much again, Christine. I'm glad You made the decision that you made. I'm sure there are a lot of other people that are happy as well. And we'll make sure to have all those links in the show notes. So again, I appreciate you and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

15:54 – Christine Searle

You too, Gresh. Thank you.

15:56 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.